Postsecondary leaders must develop new approaches to navigate disruption and uncertainty, writes Daniel Atlin (University of Guelph). Drawing on research interviews with senior leaders in Canada and abroad, Atlin argues that leaders should embrace “sense-making”—understanding and interpreting the situations people find themselves in—to guide their institutions. Toward this end, he outlines four strategies: exploration and map-making to gather and adapt data, storytelling to unite communities, invention and improvisation to respond in real time, and adaptation through collaboration. “By recognizing the messiness of their organizations and using sense-making skills, leaders in social-purpose organizations have better odds of surviving the perils and challenges of massive disruption and unprecedented change,” concludes Atlin.
